


beyond all lost and lovely places

by geiszlcr



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Post-Movie: Pacific Rim (2013), literally just them being in love because im gay and do what i want, no kaiju, uprising don't interact
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-02
Updated: 2018-07-02
Packaged: 2019-06-01 04:16:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15134897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geiszlcr/pseuds/geiszlcr
Summary: After 13 years of knowing Newt, Hermann is ready to pop the question.





	beyond all lost and lovely places

**Author's Note:**

> a oneshot inspired by a great many conversations with ao3's godzillagroupie, poems, songs, and general hope that these boys can one day be as happy as they deserve.
> 
> title from "lost years" by mary sinton leitch.

When the big day comes, Hermann finds it almost impossible to face towards Newt, much less look him in the eye and wish him a good morning, but he has to do it anyway. He has to roll out of bed and make coffee and put on his clothes, which he pressed last night, not because he allows his shirts to wrinkle but because this is one of those days that has to be absolutely  _ perfect _ , and if hearing Newt ramble about chaos theory for the past 13 years has taught him anything, it’s that the smallest of things can have a big influence on the future. Hermann isn’t entirely sure if he believes in that kind of thing, but it’s not a risk he’s willing to take. Besides, if a couple of letters written in their spare time could lead to everything that’s happened since….

He shakes his head, pulls a sweater vest over his shirt, shakes his head again, pulls it off, puts on another. By the time he leaves the bedroom, there’s four sweater vests in the hamper that he’s decided against, most looking rather identical to the one he’s wearing. Usually Newt would tease him about this, but Dr. Geiszler has left the house early today; some post-war cleanup meeting to crash or something of the sort. Of course, Hermann has work, too, writing tables, drawing conclusions, trying desperately to avoid getting chalk on his clean trousers. The thought of going into a lab makes him nervous to the point of nausea. He leaves the house anyway, because he knows that it’s not the leftover kaiju that’s making him anxious.

Everything has been so quiet in the shatterdome recently, what with the war ending and old workers putting their time in elsewhere. It’s especially quiet in the lab he shares with Newt, today because of his absence and in general because they haven’t had as much fighting to do now that they’ve seen the insides of each other’s heads. In fact, they’ve stopped fighting to the point that their supervisors wish they would argue  _ more _ . On more than one occasion they’ve been called out for studying more anatomy than biology or physics.

Today, though, Hermann is mostly studying the clock. He waits for the minutes to pass as he taps his pencil, something Newt would also tease him for, and watches the door. He shifts around his papers every couple of minutes but he can’t make himself focus on anything that’s written on them for long enough to make much progress. There’s a polaroid on his desk of him and Newton from right after the breach closed. It gets more attention than anything else, and he finds it gives him a surprising amount of peace. Looking at it, he can channel the exact memory of the relief, the satisfaction, the safety, the feeling of Newt’s hand on his shoulder. He didn’t even mean to smile in that picture, really. It was as reflexive and natural as the first date, and the first kiss, and the first “I love you too” - God knows he couldn’t bring himself to say it first. He considers today to be a way to kind of make up for that. He pats his pants pockets mindlessly throughout the morning to check that the case is still inside. Once or twice he opens it, checks to see that the ring is still there, still shiny, still engraved with his writing, his promise.

It’s not until his alarm rings alerting him to leave for lunch that he realizes how low his nerves had gotten, and how incredibly high they’re rising now. He looks around frantically, patting his pants again and again, grabbing his coat from the hook, stumbling around the lab looking for anything he must be missing. He’s not, though. Of course he’s not - he’s spent the past week making sure everything is in its place in preparation. When he can’t put it off any longer he takes a deep breath and makes his way out of the lab, dodging high fives from coworkers with knowing looks in their eyes.

Newt doesn’t show up to their meeting spot until ten minutes after he was scheduled to arrive, each one more nerve-wracking than the last for his poor boyfriend. Hermann notices his glasses are cleaner than usual, and while his sleeves aren’t exactly what he’d call neat, they’re certainly less clumsily rolled than on a typical day. Barely daring to look at Newt and betray his plans, Hermann mutters a half-hearted gibe in his general direction about how he should really clean up more often. It’s a backwards kind of way of saying he looks nice. Newt knows what he means anyway. He always does.

They get coffees and sandwiches and take them to a nearby park where they’ve spent many spring lunch breaks walking hand in hand and observing the flowers. Despite the happy memories, Hermann chose this park for different reasons today; there’s a fountain there where he can sit and still capture attention and beauty without having to kneel. He jokes in his head that he’s done a lot of falling for Newt, but he’s not quite willing to give up his cane yet.

And when they reach the fountain, he pulls out two coins from his pocket,  one for each of them to wish on, handing one to Newton with a shaking hand. He squeezes his eyes closed as tight as he can for as long as he can bear, maybe a little too long - and tosses the coin into the air.

The velvet case in his pocket feels impossible to grab, but it’s there in his hand by the time he hears the coin plop into the water, propped open, ready to speak his wish when he turns around to see Newt already there behind him, left knee on the ground, holding out something that glints in the sun, and asks, softly, “Will you marry me?”

Five seconds pass in complete stillness, then ten, then twenty. Newt starts to dust himself off and quickly gets to his feet, saying something Hermann’s ears can’t quite process because  _ what the hell just happened? _

“I, uh, I was just thinking about today and how we had this all planned, and I thought it might be a good time to ask, but dude, really, you don’t need to worry -” Newt stammers, choking off the sound abruptly when Hermann takes his hand and asks with an unreadable tone, “Is this a mood ring?”

Newt blushes deep red and nods, pressing it into his boyfriend’s hand. “I guess it’s kinda stupid, but, see, when you open your hand, I just hope it reads something like ‘happy’, or ‘excited’, or ‘in love’. And you don’t have to even take it, really.”

Hermann closes his hand with the ring inside and, taking a seat on the fountain, pulls out the velveteen case he’s been sweating on. He opens it again and croaks out, “I came here to ask you the same thing,” feeling heat swell to his face, “if you would. If you would marry me.”

Newt’s face shifts from apprehensive to overjoyed to embarrassed to a mixture of everything all at once. “Dude,” he says with as much a laugh as he can muster behind tears, “if I had known yours was gonna be so fancy I  _ definitely _ wouldn’t have gotten you a mood ring.” They laugh as Hermann slides the ring onto Newt’s finger, as reflexive and natural as everything else. Hermann loosens his grip on the ring in his other hand too, opening it to see the colour.

“It says I’m angry that you stole my moment,” he teases, knowing as it reaches his knuckles that its colour doesn’t really matter. It’s from Newt, it always reads “in love”. It always will.

**Author's Note:**

> thank u for reading aa <3 i hope i dont sound like...too pathetic.. i just want them to be happy ok!!!
> 
> find me on tumblr @geiszlcr if you would like! feel free to send me a message or leave comments, nd have a wonderful day <3


End file.
